


Accident

by tastewithouttalent



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Concussions, First Kiss, Gun Violence, Italian Mafia, M/M, No Plot/Plotless, Partnership
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-11
Updated: 2017-09-11
Packaged: 2018-12-25 09:44:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12033315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tastewithouttalent/pseuds/tastewithouttalent
Summary: "Gokudera wonders, sometimes, if it’s some kind of a curse on him, that every time he’s sent out to handle some supposedly simple task it blows up in his face like the makeshift bombs he used to construct as a kid, the ones that left him with singed hair and blistered fingers and one more piece of knowledge about what not to do." Gokudera is all too familiar with bad luck, but at least he doesn't have to face it alone.





	Accident

It was supposed to be an easy negotiation.

They always are. Gokudera wonders, sometimes, if it’s some kind of a curse on him, that every time he’s sent out to handle some supposedly simple task it blows up in his face like the makeshift bombs he used to construct as a kid, the ones that left him with singed hair and blistered fingers and one more piece of knowledge about what  _not_ to do. He wonders if he’ll ever get as good about living his life as he did with his bombs, if he’ll finally reach a point where he’s made all the mistakes he needs to to coast through the rest of his life with effortless grace. It’s a pleasant thought to daydream about, sometimes, when insomnia has invaded via the rush of his too-frantic thoughts and even the slow burn of his cigarettes isn’t enough to lull him to calm; but Gokudera is too much of a pessimist to really believe he’ll ever achieve that kind of success, no matter how many times he blows himself up along the way.

Besides, it’s a lot harder to survive his fuck-ups now than it was when he was a kid.

“Fuck,” he spits now, feeling the rattle of bullets ping and dent against the scrap metal he’s currently ducking behind while his heart skids against his ribs and his hands work through the motion of freeing a fresh stick of dynamic with the fluid grace of perfected practice. “Fuck, fuck,  _fuck_.” He yanks the fuse of the dynamite free with one hand as he fumbles in his pocket for his lighter and tips his head up to shout loud enough to be heard over the deafening sound of gunfire. “Where’s my  _fucking_  cover, Yamamoto?”

“Working on it!” comes back the answer, pitched into that same teeth-grinding cheer that neither age nor violence has succeeded in beating out of the other man. There’s the  _ping_  of something ricocheting off metal; Gokudera doesn’t lift his head to see what it is Yamamoto is deflecting away from their makeshift hideout. He doesn’t have to know the details; it’s enough to have the silhouette of the other in his periphery, Yamamoto’s presence enough all by itself to let Gokudera focus the whole of his attention on the dynamite he’s working on.

He’ll never admit it out loud -- he hasn’t done so in the last five years, he’s not about to break his streak now -- but it’s a comfort, on these missions that inevitably turn sour, that Yamamoto is always there with him, with the ease of his laugh to soothe rising tensions and the edge of his blade to cut through them when necessary. Gokudera stopped protesting after the first time Yamamoto saved his life, after he watched the boy he had spent months railing against drag himself forward to pull the heart-stopping electricity of Gamma’s attack onto himself instead of Gokudera, and if he hasn’t said thank you he’s not complained, either, even as the Tenth’s orders became so ingrained that he doesn’t even have to say Yamamoto’s name anymore, that it’s enough to send Gokudera somewhere to know the other will be there too. It’s unquestionably better than the other options: Sasagawa understands subtlety even less than the baseball idiot, and Hibari is superb in a fight but terrible as the support Gokudera’s style of fighting requires. Lambo is too young, even if he’s getting taller by the day, and Chrome is...Chrome is Chrome, except when she’s Mukuro, and Gokudera has even less idea how to deal with the girl than with the man. So it’s Yamamoto, then, whenever Gokudera goes out on these negotiations; and it’s always Yamamoto there when they turn bad, it’s the edge of Yamamoto’s blade that buys Gokudera the time he needs to arrange the most effective of his attacks. They barely even have to talk, by now; there’s no need for strategizing, no need to discuss the next move when everything is a well-learned dance, with Yamamoto’s instinct and Gokudera’s tactics together to take on whatever opponents they may face.

“Light,” Gokudera shouts, a statement instead of a warning, and he flicks open the lighter to bring the flame in against the fuse of the dynamite as part of a single motion, closing the lid again over the heat in the same breath the fuse catches and crackles with danger. He tips his head back to gauge the distance over the metal behind him; Yamamoto’s sword flashes in his periphery, the blade catching the light for a brief moment before the other ducks in sideways, moving to press his shoulders flush to the wall just next to him that grants him far better cover than Gokudera’s own barrier. There’s a shout from their enemies, a voice declaring that they should charge in this moment of apparent weakness; and Gokudera twists over onto his knees and comes up to take in the lay of the battlefield in the span of a heartbeat. There’s a cluster of enemies holding tight together as if numbers will give them enough of an advantage to take out Yamamoto and his sword; it’s an absurd idea but a common misconception, common enough that Gokudera is already drawing his arm back to throw as quickly as he sees them. The dynamite flies into a smooth arc, cutting through the air in a perfect parabola as Gokudera ducks back down behind his shield, and he’s just pressed his shoulders in against the support behind him and braced himself when there’s the sound of an explosion, the  _boom_  of the dynamite going off heavy enough that Gokudera can feel it resonate through the soles of his shoes and jar into his shoulders. He shuts his eyes against the rush of wind, against the spill of air that always follows one of his detonations; his hair ruffles around his face, the strands catching dust to tangle over his eyes like it’s trying to blind him. Gokudera makes a face and lifts a hand to push it back and away, reflecting that he really should cut off an inch or two just to keep it from distracting him at crucial moments; but the thought is distant and ultimately unimportant, as the sound of his explosion fades to leave absolute silence in its wake. Gokudera takes a breath of dust-heavy air, starts a slow count of ten before he moves; and in his periphery Yamamoto turns away from the support of the wall, leaning in and around the corner to peer out at the wreckage they’ve made of the battlefield. Gokudera’s attention swings sideways at once, his breath hisses from between his teeth on a surge of frustration; but Yamamoto is stepping forward and into open range, apparently overconfident or careless enough to leave himself wide open without any concern for ensuring their victory first.

“ _Yamamoto_ ,” Gokudera growls, hissing the words into a mockery of an undertone that just makes him sound shrill. “Get  _back_.”

“They’re down,” Yamamoto declares without so much as shifting a foot in response to Gokudera’s demand. “It’s over.”

“We don’t know that yet,” Gokudera snaps. “Get the fuck back where you were or you’ll get  _shot_.”

Yamamoto’s laugh is startling, the way it’s always startling at moments like this, sunshine made sound in a room filled with the taste of dust and the smell of blood. “You worry too much, Gokudera,” he says as he tips his head to flash the brilliance of his smile at Gokudera. It looks indulgent, tolerant and affectionate at one and the same time; it makes Gokudera’s teeth clench, makes his jaw strain on the frustration that even now Yamamoto can bring out of him faster than anyone.

“Get  _back_ ,” he snaps, turning sideways and pushing to his feet so he can stomp forward and shove at Yamamoto’s shoulders. “You can’t keep treating this like it’s a game all the time!”

Yamamoto stumbles back, his footing compromised by Gokudera’s push but his smile as resilient and unflinching as ever. “It is,” he says, his tone deceptively sweet for what amounts to him digging in his heels out of sheer stubbornness. “Kind of. That’s why we say we won, right?”

“You  _idiot_ ,” Gokudera snaps, on his feet and not noticing how much he’s undermining his own claim of danger by his position. The insult is familiar on his tongue, sweet and warm like nostalgia sliding to ease the strain of fear in his chest into the easier weight of frustration, into the anger that Gokudera has always been better at dealing with than anything else. He takes a step close, just because it feels good to push into Yamamoto’s personal space, to invade the span of the other’s existence and see how utterly unwavering Yamamoto’s smile is, to see the way his mouth tugs tighter at one corner, as if their argument is as much a game as everything else in his life. Gokudera huffs a breath and presses both hands to Yamamoto’s shoulders to shove again, to force the other back against the wall behind him. “When are you going to grow up and take all this seriously?”

Yamamoto’s laugh breaks all across his face like sunrise, lighting up the curve of his mouth and glowing behind his eyes, as if the friction of Gokudera’s anger is enough to spark the fuse of delight that always seems to smolder so short in him. “You always say that, Gokudera.”

“Yeah,” Gokudera says. “And you always--”

The sound interrupts him. It’s a loud one, a  _crack_  so low and heavy that Gokudera thinks for a moment it’s a gunshot, is ducking in reflexive avoidance before he’s yet realized the sound is too resonant, that it lacks the sharp whine of a bullet cutting through the air. He turns his head anyway, staring wide-eyed at their enemies; but the bodies in the rest of the room are still, unmoving even as that first noise is followed by another, like a smaller explosion set off by the first. Gokudera still doesn’t know what it is, can’t place the direction; but when he looks back to Yamamoto the other’s smile is gone, his expression has gone slack with focus as he looks up, and it’s seeing Yamamoto’s attention on the roof overhead that makes Gokudera realize.

“Oh shit,” he says, “it’s the ceil--” and then there’s a third  _crack_ , this one so loud Gokudera feels it jolt up his legs and knock his balance right out from under him, as if an earthquake has just rippled through the floor. He falls to his knees, landing hard on his outstretched palms; and overhead there’s a rumble of sound as the ceiling caves in, the support holding it steady critically undermined by the effect of Gokudera’s bomb. Gokudera’s shoulders tense, his body tries to brace itself against a blow; plaster rains down against him, dust falling so heavy and thick for a moment he can’t so much as catch a breath of air. Gokudera coughs, wheezes, coughs again; and then the sound eases, and settles, and there’s just the sound of his breathing catching in his throat as he blinks hard to clear the dust from his vision.

“Fuck,” he says, rasping the word past the weight of dust in his mouth and stifling his breathing. “Yamamoto, are you..” as he lifts his head, and sees Yamamoto slumped to terrifying stillness against the rubble of the wall behind him, and the words fade off to forgotten silence as all the shock in Gokudera’s body goes cold with horror instead.

“Yamamoto,” he says again, repeating the familiar weight of that name in a voice too stripped of strength for him to hear himself; but he’s moving without waiting for a response, stumbling forward with a speed that makes his motion more of a controlled fall than the smooth of steps to cross the intervening distance. Yamamoto’s head is tipped to the side, his eyes shut and mouth slack; there’s dust powdering his hair and the dark of his shoulders to white and the remnants of the collapsed ceiling scattered around him. Gokudera’s knees hit the ground beneath them, the rough edges of the floor bruise hard against his skin through the fabric of his suit pants, but he doesn’t notice; he’s lifting his hands instead, reaching out to clutch against those white-dusted shoulders and shake against the slack weight of Yamamoto’s body. “ _Yamamoto_ , fuck, open your eyes.” Gokudera’s breath is catching, his eyes are burning, but he can’t spare the attention even to blink, can’t spare the moment to gasp a breath and ease some of the strain in his chest. “Don’t do this to me, Yamamoto, you can’t do this, I can’t--open your eyes,  _fuck_.” He lifts his hand from Yamamoto’s shoulder, his fingers trembling like they’re caught in a high wind as he reaches out to slap hard against the other’s face. “ _Yamamoto_.”

Yamamoto’s lashes flutter, his mouth shifts around the huff of a breath; Gokudera would swear he can feel the gravity of the world tremor under him, like the whole of the universe is resettling itself back into something that might tolerate existence once again as he watches Yamamoto’s forehead crease, as he hears the drag of the other’s inhale. Yamamoto’s eyes come open slow, like he’s trying to work through the motion; for a long moment he stares off over Gokudera’s shoulder, his gaze hazy and distracted before he blinks hard and pulls his attention back around to the other’s face.

“Oh,” he says, sounding soft and sweet and startled, like he’s been knocked back to the first day they met, before his laugh was a constant in Gokudera’s life, before his smile was a better fixed point than the sun. “Gokudera.”

Gokudera lets his hand fall to the support of Yamamoto’s shoulder. His fingers are shaking and he can’t stop them, his lungs are struggling for air he can’t seem to get. “Fuck,” he says again. The word sounds strange past the dust in his throat, like it’s trembling apart into a sob on his lips. “You--” and his hands are coming up, lifting on an impulse that goes as entirely unthought as the way Gokudera’s whole body tips in, his shoulders canting forward towards Yamamoto before him as fast as his palms slide in and up to cradle the shape of Yamamoto’s familiar face, to catch the line of that jaw and the arch of those cheekbones together under the support of his hands as he leans in to press his mouth hard against the soft of Yamamoto’s lips. Yamamoto’s mouth is warm against his, the part of his lips pliant and unresisting to the weight of Gokudera’s; he tastes like the dust that has rained down on them both, the same powdery soft that is showing the marks of Gokudera’s hands on his jacket and that is turning the dark of his lashes to white. But he surrenders all the same, his mouth softening under Gokudera’s as if it was just waiting to be asked to give itself up, and for a moment all Gokudera can think of is the pounding weight of relief against the inside of his chest, and the burn of assuaged fright prickling behind his eyes, and the impossible, simple perfection of Yamamoto’s mouth against his.

He pulls away after a moment, gasping to fill his lungs with dust-heavy air like he’s just surfaced from the ocean. He doesn’t shift his hands, doesn’t let his hold on Yamamoto’s face go. “Don’t you  _dare_  do that to me again.”

Yamamoto’s lashes dip, his gaze sliding down over Gokudera’s face like he’s struggling to orient himself, like he’s reaching for traction. “Okay.” His focus sticks at the other’s lips, his attention clinging to Gokudera’s mouth like it’s magnetic. “You kissed me.”

“Yes,” Gokudera snaps. “And if you die on me I swear I’ll never do it again, got it?”

Yamamoto’s gaze drifts back up to meet Gokudera’s. “Oh,” he says, and then he blinks hard, visibly struggling himself back into composure. “Yes, okay.”

“Good,” Gokudera says. “As long as you…” but Yamamoto’s gaze is drifting away again, his eyes are sliding out-of-focus; Gokudera can feel the weight of the other’s head dropping back into his hold, like Yamamoto is surrendering the weight of his body to Gokudera’s support. “ _No_ ,” Gokudera grates, and he drags Yamamoto back to upright, tightening his hold against the other’s face as he tries to pull Yamamoto back to consciousness through sheer force of will. “No no no no no  _Takeshi_ , fuck, god _damn_  it look at me, Takeshi  _open your eyes_.”

“I’m,” Yamamoto says, his lashes fluttering as he licks against his lower lip, as his forehead creases. “I’m trying.”

“Try harder,” Gokudera demands. “Stay with me, I need you to keep your eyes on me.”

Yamamoto’s mouth tugs up at the corner, his breath huffs into the tiniest exhale of a laugh. “I’m always with you.”

“I know,” Gokudera says. “I know you are, that’s why I need you to  _stay with me_ , Takeshi, you hear me?”

Yamamoto ducks his head into a nod. “I hear you,” he says. His lashes lift, his gaze slides back towards the start of focus; when he blinks at Gokudera there’s a little more clarity behind his eyes, a little more attention in his gaze. “I’m looking.”

Gokudera gusts out a breath. “Good,” he says, and he pulls Yamamoto in towards him, relinquishing his hold on the other’s head so he can fit an arm around his waist instead, can take some measure of the other’s weight in against his hold instead of leaving him slumping against the wall. “Hold onto me.” Yamamoto lifts his arm obediently, hooks his elbow around Gokudera’s neck and curls his fingers into a fist against the other’s jacket, and Gokudera takes an exhale and feels it ease something in his chest, feels it unwind some panicked tightness into the tentative beginnings of relief instead. “I’m going to call for backup to get us out of here.”

Yamamoto nods his head against Gokudera’s shoulder. “Okay.”

“Stay with me,” Gokudera says again, the words pulled from him more by the adrenaline rush of his pounding heart than any conscious decision. “Don’t let go.”

Yamamoto’s laugh feels twice as warm from this close up. When he turns his head his hair catches at Gokudera’s neck, the soft of the strands brushing over the flutter of Gokudera’s pulse in his throat. “I won’t.”

It takes Gokudera a few minutes to figure out what he did with his phone, and longer than it should to determine his priorities in who he should call first; finally he just dials in to the main headquarters, although he promptly regrets this when Sasagawa picks up the phone. Still, at least he’s confident his message will make it to the right people, even if the yells of concern on the other end of the line are enough to leave his ear ringing worse than the collapse of the ceiling did; and he can feel Yamamoto smiling against his shoulder as Sasagawa demands to know if either of them are “extremely hurt,” and that’s enough to strip the worst of the edge from Gokudera’s voice as he explains the situation. Finally the call is done, and Gokudera can return his phone to his pocket and return his hand to Yamamoto’s shoulder again; except his touch doesn’t stay where he intends it to, it wanders up instead, sliding up against the curve of Yamamoto’s neck to brace against the back of the other’s head, to cradle gently against the soft of his dust-lightened hair. Yamamoto doesn’t complain, and he doesn’t comment; he just tips his head in against Gokudera’s neck, and breathes a long sigh of what sounds like satisfaction, and keeps holding to the other’s shoulders as if he never intends to let go.

Gokudera doesn’t put words to the pressure in his chest, doesn’t say what he’s thinking aloud; but then, Yamamoto has always been good at understanding him without any words at all.


End file.
